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Report -Gas Holder, Huddersfield - February 2012

meek

So, I came across Keitei's charming report of St Marks Gas Holder in Hull. I immediately, like many of you probably would, thought of that gas holder your mind regurgitates back to you from your childhood... staring at from the back of the car on the way to swimming lessons or whatever. Not really that high, but there's always something inherently nostalgic and iconic about gasometers.

Quick chat with fishbrain, and we were off.

Millhouse came along too as he was in the area. I think the two of them were suffering some kind of chimney-induced, post-traumatic vertigo after their recent trials at Hope - it took them an age to scale the bugger. This was nice for me as I am usually the one gnawing at my fingernails and stressing myself to the point inertia at the sight of a 4ft garden fence, a cat and a couple of security-gnomes... today, I was only moderately fearful of impending doom. We were all tired though, it was late, very windy and decidedly cold...
but it was well worth it.

Prior to 1822 the streets of the town centre were lit by oil lamps. Then a private company, Huddersfield Gas Works, opened a gas works on Leeds Road.

The former Huddersfield Gas Manufacturing Works covered an area of 3.2ha and was decommissioned in 1972. There were originally five gas holders at Huddersfield, but along with the majority of the site the others were demolished over the years.

This one remains... 127ft tall and a diameter of 220ft, the giant steel structure is column-guided and split into three sections. At the bottom there is a below ground tank, and above it the `bell' contains the gas. It can hold nearly five million cubic feet of gas. At the top of the dome, the metal is only about 1cm thick and the whole thing is quite springy. The holder was originally built in 1916 by W C Holmes, but bell was rebuilt by Clayton and Co in 1968... the same peeps who built Keitei's local relic.